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Wednesday, 30 June 2010

99 First World Problems - Part 2

We mustn't stop whining, not now when the sun is out! As an English person, it is incumbent upon me to complain about a vast number of heat related topics. Also, I said I would reach 99, and I am a woman of my word. Join in, if you can raise the energy to type.

1. The weepette is fucking annoying in the heat. In the house it spends all day depositing balls in my lap and whimpering. If taken to the park, it lurks in the bushes, avoiding eye contact, and refuses to chase a ball, in the manner of a plump fourteen year old during double games. I half expect to see a Woodbine smouldering in the corner of its mouth, but no, it is mainly busy licking abandoned ice cream wrappers. Since returning home, I note that it appears to have managed to roll in something foul smelling. Oh, lovely. Lovely, lovely, lovely. Eau de Crotte de Renard pour Weepette.

2. On top of this, the park in summer is a zone of terror for me, due to having a head which attracts projectiles as surely as the 92 tram attracts smelly lunatics. Frisbees, footballs, boomerangs, they are all coming straight for me. The frequency with which I have been thwacked on the back of the head by a "fun" projectile while a gang of youths dissolves in giggles defies the laws of both probability and physics.

2. My neighbours, the Von Trapps, have taken to living entirely out of doors in the beautiful sunshine. They are endlessly, loudly, annoying. On Sunday they had a family meeting which kicked off with sung prayers. And it hurts my ribs to laugh at the moment, so I am doubly annoyed with them.

4. My bank have seen fit to cancel my credit card due to "suspected fraud" AGAIN. They do this every couple of months. Since the cash machine swallowed my debit card recently, I am once again without visible means of support. Marvellous! Thank you ING, you band of orange halfwits! (I am in credit, by the way. This is not even my fault, for once).

5. I do not wish to cook, yet I still wish to eat. Due to 4, I cannot solve this conundrum by throwing money at it. Monstrously inconvenient. Lunch is thus an ancient strawberry Cornetto from the very bottom of the freezer. Dinner might be a bag of frozen peas or possible a raw chicken breast popsicle.

6. The stuff I have been using to wash the floor smells HORRIBLE, like a stale old people's home. It is too far to the supermarket to get some that doesn't smell like sheltered housing. I am surrendering to the inevitable. Or I might slosh some bleach around if I'm feeling fancy. Oh, it's all go here.

7. There is no iced coffee in Brussels. I don't normally like iced coffee, but now that I can't have it I am furiously desperate to have some. I crave it like a sticky, sweet, milky drink junkie. I want the nasty kind you get on Greek islands, which is inexplicably delicious considering it is Nescafé and milk and sugar. Or cheap, nasty, Mr Whippy made with emulsified seal fat in the time honoured manner. If you can find "glace italienne" as it is called in Francophone places (I bet the Italians are delighted with that), it tastes distressingly like it is made of natural ingredients, and melts properly. For me, Mr Whippy is only authentic if it does not really melt at all, and barely tastes cold, due to the particular properties of seal fat.

8. The 92 tram makes me want to vomit at this time of year. If I wanted to sit in a pool of someone else's sweat, well... I don't actually know where I'd go, but it sure as hell wouldn't be the Schaerbeek tram dépôt. 20 minutes on the 92 tram currently makes me feel like I will never be clean again. I am not normally bothered about being clean in the first place, but it really is an extra-special level of disgusting which activates even my well-suppressed revulsion reflexes.

9. Some kind of nervous tic has made me scratch my left foot until it bleeds in several places. Pretty! Excellent with strappy sandals! Oddly, I remember doing precisely the same thing this time last year. It's lovely to note that my coping strategies have not evolved even slightly in twelve months.

10. My strimmer is in some way defective and has used up the whole spool of stringy stuff. Is this too technical for you? Yeah, me too. ANYWAY. The bastard no longer works. I would have to go to Brico to make it work. I would rather lick the seats of the 92 tram than go to Brico right now. Consequently, my neighbours hate me for the revolting state of my garden. Yeah, whatever. Stop singing and abusing woodwind instruments, then we'll talk.

11. The summer makes me feel like I should be out having frenetic, hysterical fun. I am not qualified in frenetic, hysterical fun, nor do I know where it lives, so instead I have a sort of permanent restlessness.

12. My chest is too large and does not fit into anything. I know one's décolleté is not the worst place to gain weight, and it does have the advantage of ahem, drawing the eye away from weight gain in other areas. But it is very annoying for clothes purposes. I need some kind of reinforced steel Marks & Spencer Joan of Arc minimiser bra.

17. 90% of my wardrobe is in a crumpled heap on the floor. Of the remaining 10% I fit into 0.1% and of that 0.1% I wish to wear 0.00000001% (this probably equates to one sock). When I even look at the iron my bones turn to jelly.

18. I only got halfway through Season 4 of 30 Rock before the TOTALLY legal method I was watching it with er, broke.

19. My nearest supermarket does not sell bags of ice. I must either make my own (OH THE HUMANITY) or walk an extra 500 yards. Unbearable.

20. Ceiling Thing, rather brilliantly, managed to fall off the ceiling whilst leaving behind one green sticky limb, which will be almost impossible to remove. Magnificent!

21. I am completely unequal to the task of finding 33 things to whine about today because actually, secretly, I am really quite enjoying the sun. Ssssssh.

Ok, your turn. One or more first world whines in the comments. How unbearably heavy is your glass of Pimms? Does the gentle thunk of tennis balls give you a migraine? I am hear to commisterate.

53 comments:

1. My glasses broke. I now have one pair that always give me a headache, and one pair that glides on like a broken hypodermic needle.

2. This was once the capital of orange halfwits, but my urging them all to 'stop breathing, then we'll talk' is getting me nowhere.

I was going to get a Super Soaker to clean the awnings (have decided I'm glad they're dirty), you might have the boys use one to remove the green sticky limb. Seriously, it will make more sense tomorrow when you're impressing the Von Trapps by spending the day outside in an inflatable wading pool. Or Friday when, if the forecast is correct, we'll all be dead.

I forgot to tell you, Frau Antje, how very much your comment on Ceiling Thing made me laugh last time. Sorry. It did. We're all dying on Friday eh? Hmm. M and I concluded on Monday that we were probably already dead and in hell, so I can't imagine it will make much difference.

20. Made me laugh right out loud, in a very chic sound reminiscent of a mule braying. Well done!

My trailer park trash neighbours actually rang my doorbell the other night! They are even more horrifying up close! They look like extras from the X-file episode with the inbred creatures who kept their mother under the floorboards.*

They want to build a garage on their property and have to get my permission, as it is adjacent to my driveway, before the city will grant them a building permit.

What, under the floorboards isn't good enough for them anymore?

*Of course they don't. But they do look even trashier. Luckily for them, I am classy enough for us all. Oh, yes. I am all about the class.

1. The landlady billed EACH of us 1/3 of her (by my lease, SHE pays all the utilities) May utility bill. It's not our fault she can't keep up with her utiity bills. we froze to death last winter cuz she kept setting the thermostat at 50F. and she still complained of the cost.

2. i have been doing the EFT exercises for my lack of funds to no freakin' avail. Everywhere you go, prices are twice what they were last winter (3 months ago).

3. the housemate has retaliated against the landlady's ban on using the dishwasher by leaving all her dirty dishes in the sink this a.m. yes, i washed them. yes, i cleaned up the pools on the countertop. yes, i am going to move to ummm...mexico? the peso there is worth .07 or .08 USD. i know nobody there, and i know no spanish. not a problem.

1. A deranged black bird (with a death wish, one would assume) insists on perching on my bedroom roof at 6 in the morning and doing its absurdly repetitive screeching noises. If I owned a gun (and could aim and hit anything ever) it would be a black bird pie. Although that would warrant baking (in this heat? madness) so probably I'd just feed the fucker to the neighbour's cat.

2. I chipped my toenail polish and the remover is, like, ALL the way upstairs.

3. Weird mumbling landlady insists I mow her crappy crusted brown lawn but does not provide a machine with which to do this. As a result, the lawn resembles what I imagine yours looks like E.

4. Am going to Greece on Saturday for a week and owing to my own deathly Celtic pallor, I am likely to spend entire time either under wraps or resembling an oven-baked tomato (with white sticks because like you, my legs remain obstinately white no matter what the rest of me looks like).

5. I am not, nor will I ever be, willowy and bronzed. Am stumpy and have eaten so many Haribo Gummy Bears (which are primarily made up of carnuba wax...disturbing. Knowing this doesn't stop me eating them, but does make me pause every now and then) that I'm starting to resemble one.

Unless you two have some mad dogs and Englishmen scheme up your sleeves, Friday will be noteworthy in a way that makes hell look good. And I'm not talking about the possibility of Oranje making it into the semi-finals either.

Because of the hot weather and the fact that I wish to wear sandals, I am obliged to do something about my hobbit feet. They are so vile that I have to use the ped egg outside or we will all die in a cloud of grated foot dust and it will be like Pompeii but in Glenfield.

I have spent large parts of the last fortnight obliged to deal with stupid people who want my help. I am stupid, but at least I don't want my help and I don't keep ringing myself up to whinge. I may suggest that they get a blog.

1. Lacking a proper yard, I must walk the dog. Today we walked to the park and he brought me pine cones covered in slimy, stringy slobber to throw. If left un-thrown, he chews them to bits. Part dog, part squirrel.

2. The smoke detector battery ran low and started beeping. Of course, no replacement battery. Removing low battery does nothing to stop incessant beeping, so we remove entire unit (much cursing while balancing precariously on a chair). Better to burn in our sleep than take 5 minutes to go to store and get replacement.

3. On account of somewhat neurotic cycling habit, have exposed various body parts to the sun for varying lengths of time, resulting in a patchy (but natural!) bronzing. Lovely in sleeveless. Lovely.

4. Flaky scalp. Wearing white is not a safe option because I am accident prone and slovenly. Wearing dark colors shows off accumulation on shoulders and chest nicely.

1. I have terrible terrible hair. Gwyneth Paltrow calls her hair 'Jewfro'. I think I have jewfro hair, but I am not sure. I am not a jew. It is quite fluffy though. And anyway, Gwyneth is mental. Her hair is silky and straight like an untouched Barbie and it probably smells delicious. Although it may have a whiff of the Dead Inside about it.

2. I really just want to stay in my cool dark basement flat in the summer, but those pesky kids make me go out. I am a bit like the Vampire, all shrinking away from the bright light.

3. i am sad i have to bare my arms.

4. all food seems wrong, except for ice cream.

5. my feet get blackened, swollen and cracked every day like old people with bad circulation. i blame those birkenstocks. I know in my head I should give them up for some wedges or peeptoe boots or even CLOGS but I cannot muster the strength.

i am jealous that you have a dog, by the way. We only have silverfish and a few moths.

hm, and here i thought that flying objects only hit me on the head. i always say that walking through an empty field in the middle of the night, i shall be the one to get knocked out by a flying ball of some sort.

first world problems?

1. just had my pedi done and i am not thrilled with the shade of the nail polish nor the amount of skin the young lady removed from my hooves.

2. heat? what's that? i should like some, i think, but it's not happening.

3. currently (again) unemployed and am feeling snarky that mr. monkey asked me to take time out of my extremely busy schedule to get the oil changed in the car.

4. broke my favourite silver chain.

5. swimsuits look terrible on me (or do i look terrible in them? either way, not good)

I have just had my leg taken out of plaster after 10 weeks. I look like a bad dish of neapolitan icecream. Good leg is brown(ish), bad leg is pale and goosepimply. Cannot get legs to match despite use of Evolve "glow cream" (your number 3 made me retch with sympathy)...

Due to scar tissue on back of my leg and brand new tendon arrangment, I cannot walk uphill so will have to walk uphill backwards. Do not want to be known as crazy backwards lady in my neighourhood so cannot walk back from town and have to take taxis.

2. Bills, for things like clean, running, hot and cold water. And electricity to power fans and Internet.3. I also have a funny sports-gear tan. Yeesh.4. So many novels to read, so little time to read them.5. Gwyneth Paltrow. Seriously, she is a nightmare first world problem.

1) I want to buy a bike but I cannot afford the brand new gorgeous red cruiser that my heart desires so I have to settle for craigs list.

2) This is a problem as I'm convinced all bikes on Craigs list are stolen.

3) Today the database I'm trying to build made me look like an idiot by suddenly revealing that it wasn't working because of my mistake.

4) I still have to resolve another problem with the database and now because of problem number 3 I don't have a leg to stand on when I claim the issue is nothing to do with me and its some sort or excel/access weirdness.

5) I accidentally stole a mug from the union office today which may mean I'm going senile.

6) I am the third oldest person in my economics class and I have no idea about all the crappy maths stuff that the 20 year olds with their agile little brains take in their stride. So I'm definitely going senile.

Forgot to add the bank charged me whole five dollars for taking a mere $20 out of my savings account. If I had transferred the money first to my current account and then taken the funds out it would have cost me nothing. Very miffed about this.

My breasts are so large that my bad neck aches all the time, which gives me migraines, and my doctor thinks I should decrease my use of pain pills. Insurance does not cover breast reduction and even if I got one I wouldn't be able to pick up my kiddos for at least six weeks, so I can't do it anyway.

My feet are at least as bad as Katyboo's, causing me to spend $20 today on a new foot file. I have a crack so big I can't fix it with superglue, so I can't exercise to try to bring down size of large breasts.

1. ING bastards have told us to cancel our cards as well, and can't get replacements out to us before our holidays. I have shouted at them on phone, husband has shouted at them in branch, they have sniggered at poor hapless customers expecting some service.

2. Breasts refuse to shrink even if I lose weight on every other part of body, but when I regain the weight, they grow even bigger. Buy properly fitted bras from specialist shop but still they cut into my shoulders under the strain.

1. It's the heat, in general, and then guilt for complaining about it after waiting MONTHS for constant warmth &, more importantly, sunshine. My feet & ankles keep swelling -- I look like I have elephantiasis -- & it's too freaking hot to cover this up with jeans. (I'm blaming the heat. It could also be spending six or more hours at a stretch on the computer, staying up all night, drinking too much coffee and/ or alcohol...) Oh hell, I used to have "sexy" ankles. Now they're just podgy...which is also the situation with

2. My upper arms. I haven't had "shapely" arms since I was 11-years-old. Even in this heat I continue to wear sleeves (& envy those women with well-defined biceps).

5. I have been watching far too many reality shows on TV (ever since we got that damn big ass flat screen the husband wanted to view the World Cup...which is another rant...). As a result, I notice my first four "problems" have been about MY physical appearance.And, from the sofa, all those house cleaning, redesigning, totally makeover in just one hour shows are so exhausting that my place remains an unfinished tip.(I know I could turn off the TV. Then I can go online.)

Too many to name when I'm meant to be writing serious things for work...But lack of funds for Tom Ford lipstick and the Christopher Kane dress reduced to £150 in the sale. Also the silent refusal of JFK to empty the dishwasher or do washing up. I keep leaving dirty crockery on the side meaningfully but to no avail. It's not my fault that he is out all the time and barely uses the kitchen, he should still help to clean up after me.

1. I only want to eat icecream2. Mother keeps pointing out how fat I am with baby n°2 (shutup mom) 3. Craving Sangria or Moijoto but can not touch them due to baby n°24. I would love to be able to walk around naked all day, but the polish construction crew across the street can look into my house and garden 5. I want to go swimming, but have no bathing suit6. My cat leaves dead mice for me to find on our brand new terras. etc etc etc

Hearing you on 12. I wanted to buy a dress but can't due to still breastfeeding and having ludicrous boobs with cup sizes in parts of the alphabet I never realized they used. Anything that fits the boobs swamps elsewhere. Very annoying as stomach region still not really fit to be confined in a skirt.

Will be looking out for single white legged backwards hillwalker at Latitude

Where to begin? The Essie nail polish in Fiji that I saw on a girl at the supermarket does not look opaque and beachy and pretty on my toes, it looks streaky and odd and not entirely unlike slightly pink Wite-Out.

I want to buy a nice apartment with a balcony in a good neighborhood but no one will sell one to me for a reasonable price.

I don't know what to have for lunch. I never know what to have for lunch. There's never anything in the fridge to have for lunch. I hate lunch.

Cary--skip Craig's List and buy your bike at a police auction. Then you can be sure it was stolen.

-I'm having a fashion crisis re: what to wear to a social event this Saturday. What does one wear to a hipster lesbian wedding in an architectural salvage warehouse on a holiday weekend in July?-Related to the fashion crisis: I've developed a massive acne cyst (near the corner of my eye, bizarrely), and the dermatologist is booked full until next week. I am sure the cyst will be immortalized on film, as one of the brides at the upcoming wedding is best friends with my husband (he's giving a toast) and we have already been warned that we will be photographed extensively with her.-I somehow agreed to invite 100 people for a party next weekend to my smallish 2 flat with a postage-stamp sized yard. I am hoping most of them will decline, but expect to still have to clean up and make pasta salad for 50. I lose sleep praying that they don't all show up at once and overtax the front porch, which we recently learned is not actually attached to the building.-The house is a tip from all the DIY my husband has been doing. The bright paint we chose for the bathroom makes the doorway glow at night when the light's on, like the Green Lantern might be hanging out in there in his free time from fighting crime. Also, all the shelves he (my husband, not GL) hung are all slightly crooked--not enough that you'd notice at first, but enough to eventually drive me insane as I contemplate them while brushing my teeth every day.-The two kinds of steroids I'm on for my autoimmune disease flare-up make me feel like I've had too much coffee, 24/7.-I need a pedicure like a champ.-Gwyneth Paltrow.

p.s. Since commenting on the previous post re: first world problems, I have experienced a 24 hour power cut in 90F, a plague of ants immune to hippie orange oil pesticide, the theft of our (ancient and crappy) reel lawnmower from our unlocked garage, and a colonoscopy. Hopefully this comment doesn't trigger any more of that kind of crappy first world karma.

1. Gwyneth Paltrow2. My iPod just died this morning, cannot afford to replace. Now forced to face unrelieved ennui of other people’s clickclacking keyboards without the benefit of distracting noises3. It turns out that the flipside of getting free books through the post is that I have to spend an exhausting amount of energy reviewing them. To deadline. What's wrong with just giving me free books for love?4. Am so wildly popular (ho ho) that twice as many people as estimated will be attending small one’s birthday bbq, when it is forecast to rain. Fourteen toddlers off their heads on sugar and double that number of adults squiffy on cocktails all trapped inside. Mmmm....

Also, Mme Jaywalker, as an F-cup myself I absolutely sympathise with no 12 - this heat makes me feel like sodding Jessica Rabbit and not in a good way. Always thought the poor girl probably suffered from terrible back problems and difficulty finding dresses that fit...

I appreciate it's rather improprietous to expect to visit your 'chambre' but, had such an event occurred, I could have had HOURS of fun sitting on the couch with a big bag of elastic bands, trying to shoot down 'Ceiling Thing'.

I appreciate it's rather improprietous to assume I might ever have gained access to the Waffle Inner Sanctum to see Ceiling Thing but, had I done so, I would have had hours of fun sitting on the couch with a big bag of rubber bands, trying to shoot the little bugger down.

1. One of the sweet fledgling robins living in our tree crapped on the patio AS I WATCHED. I was forced to hose off the patio for a solid two minutes before I could finally settle in with a good book and cold iced tea.2. My iPad (which came free with my brand new car) irritates me because I have to transfer my music files to iTunes before I can use it to play music through the stereo in my brand new car. God.

Ok I'm here to share your pain, 1) I have not one but two whippets one of whom (Betty) is in heat, in the heat. My boy whippet (Louis) reacts to this not by making puppies but by following her around crying which if he'd been around when my ex lived here I could understand as learned behaviour. 2) The breast thing3) The hormone thing. Nearly punched a man for being jolly with me whilst selling me a clown's wig which I needed for a tv thing I'm working on. (A character, dresses up as a clown to show his contempt for the legal system) He also described it as multi-covered rather than multi-coloured and asked if I'd like to try it on.4) I'm halfway through series 3 of 30 Rock, went to watch it last night and TV shack has been closed down. (Actually don't know if it was legal or not so I'll curb my ingignance s little) Hope that helps. X